A feature-length The Flintstones animation? Yabba dabba do it!

The Flintstones movie (1994) and its 2000 prequel, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, deserve to be trampled to death by herds of rampaging velociraptors, not least for the crime of casting Rick Moranis, then Stephen Baldwin, as poor Barney Rubble. And yet there is hope this week that the classic cartoon might yet carve a more attractive place for itself in the celluloid cliff face, after Warner Bros announced plans for a new big-screen adaptation.

There's no need this time around for producers to recruit the film industry's cuddliest actors to play Fred. Nor will bright young stars such as Jennifer Lawrence and Scarlett Johansson be offered a chance to play Wilma and Betty, at least not in the flesh. Because the new Flintstones movie is going to be an animated affair – and for that, we should all rejoice.

Ever since Hollywood realised it was possible to take an established small-screen property and transfer it to cinemas for vast financial gain (even the first Flintstones movie made an impressive $341m (£202m) worldwide), some pretty unwieldy ventures have hit the multiplexes. Who can forget the appalling Garfield movies, with an apologetic-sounding Bill Murray? Or the god-awful Popeye movie from 1980, which failed despite having Robert Altman behind the cameras, Robin Williams as everyone's favourite spinach-munching strongman, and Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl? Or the cornea-melting Scooby-Doo films? Or 1987's execrable Masters of the Universe, with Dolph Lundgren as a Swedish He-Man.

Meanwhile, animated movies have gained in popularity, with the successes of Pixar and Dreamworks Animation. There are six of these studios' films in the all-time box office top 30, as opposed to one cartoon to live-action adaptation (Transformers: Dark of the Moon). Why bother adapting your animated TV show into live action when it is likely to be more popular in its original form?

Warner Bros's decision to plump for a more suitable format for its next Flintstones film suggests that studio bosses now realise animation does not have to be simplistic, nor popular only with children. The recent Lego Movie should certainly have helped in this regard. There's also an argument to be made that eschewing the live action approach is a safer move: a property which is well-known in its original form is always likely to face criticism when it morphs into something different – as Michael Bay recently discovered while making his reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

If the new Flintstones movie can follow in the footsteps of the fairly decent Simpsons film from 2007, and simply update and translate what made the Hanna-Barbera show so wonderful, we might all be in for a brighter filmgoing future. No longer will we blanch at the prospect of Brad Pitt as Lion-O in a Thundercats live-action monstrosity, or cower in horror at news that Eddie Murphy is to play Hong Kong Phooey. (Don't panic – I made that one up, while the Thundercats movie is an amusing hoax from 2009).

So here's to the next generation of wonderful animated kids' shows adapted into fabulous big-budget animated movies. Who's up for an extended, digitally animated Battle of the Planets, aka Science Ninja Team Gatchaman? Or perhaps a $200m Peter Jacksonesque three-hour extravaganza based on The Mysterious Cities of Gold? A feature-length, blockbuster Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds? Perhaps you can stretch a theory too far …